John Smith's PNE Fans' Panel verdict: Great Dane Iversen saved our bacon
It’s the hope that kills you is a well known phrase used by many old-school North End fans.
I, along with some of the other hardy loyal supporters who travelled down to Shepherd’s Bush, had this feeling in my mind as we went into the half-time interval a goal down in this curtain-raiser for our eleventh successive Championship season.
In the old folk tale, Dick Whittington went down to London hoping to find its streets paved with gold.
At the end of the game, although I felt that we had not exactly struck gold on the pitch, travelling back from our journey to the Big Smoke I believe the hard-earned point we earned on the road was not to be sniffed at.
Our first-half display mirrored the story of the character Whittington, whose first efforts at making his fortune met with little success.
Apart from a couple of half-chances in a bright opening few minutes, Rangers in general had more of the attacking play in the first 45 minutes.
It came as no surprise to me when they eventually took the lead minutes before the interval, albeit in fortunate circumstances when league debutant Andrija Vukcevic attempted to clear a dangerous low cross only for the ball to agonisingly ricochet off Ben Whiteman into the net.
In the story, Dick Whittington's salvation came when he acquired a cat which proved to be a great rat catcher and was subsequently sold for a fortune to make him a rich man .
Whether Milutin Osmajic – who revitalised our fortunes on the pitch by scoring an equalising goal – will eventually be sold for a huge sum remains to be seen.
But his goal when he latched on to a long kick out from Daniel Iversen and coolly lobbed the keeper certainly had me purring as loud as Whittington's cat.
The goal – which came as a result of some quick thinking from Iversen, whose long punt set us up on the counter – is one I thought we would not have scored last season.
Back then, our slow distribution out from goal at times hampered our ability in making a quick switch from defence to attack.
In my opinion the capture of Iversen on a free transfer is a remarkable piece of business for us.
And the Danish shot stopper also saved our bacon by leaping and beating away a sizzling shot from the edge of area.
The early second half-goal gave us some renewed impetus.
And for large parts of the second 45 minutes we managed to take the game to Rangers whose players as well as the crowd now began to look edgy at times.
Towards its end the game could have gone either way.
But our toils and endeavours could not produce a winner, while there were also some workmanlike performances put in our defenders.